


His Willing Idolatry

by manyface



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bloodplay, Body Worship, Dehumanisation, Eye Horror, M/M, Ritual Sex, woundfucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 04:27:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20558225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manyface/pseuds/manyface
Summary: There’s something so wickedly funny about an idol made for worship struggling against the lavish love that gives it meaning.





	His Willing Idolatry

When Elias calls him Archivist, Jon knows he’s in deep, shot through with sharp purpose and the sweetest taint of fear. The title sits lovely and sonorous on his lips but reveals none of the affection or even the chiding with which he calls Jon’s name. He briefly recalls all the times the word’s slipped from the tongues of those who only knew him by it, laced with formality, contempt, unease, and even slivers of respect if he was lucky – but no, when Elias says it, there’s reverence. My Archivist. 

He can see the same reverence pool in the warm dark of Elias’ eyes, trickle up and down his fingers as he beckons Jon closer. Like fresh blood, he thinks, and accepts the invitation – and when Elias smiles with proud satisfaction, he feels a tingle of that reverence too. He doesn’t need to be told where they’re going, of course – he already knows and needs but to follow, in through the library and then a few turns to Elias’ office. This time, however, it isn’t their final destination, and as Elias reaches under the collar of his shirt to pull out a golden, jewelled key on a delicate chain, Jon instantly knows that it’s a perfect fit for the pretty padlock on the door behind the desk, and also that Elias has finally chosen to grant him the knowledge for what lies beyond. For all the times he’s tried to peek inside, he’s been met with nothing but a shudder of static, so it’s an almost playful curiosity with which he demands the key. Climbing the staircase behind the door leads them into an airy room with a mirror walls and a domed, stained glass roof. It’s beautiful and freeing, and Jon doesn’t need to look up to know that he’s being watched by the myriad eyes lovingly crafted from and into the glass, in clusters that somehow look more like flowers. He looks up anyway. Violets and tulips streaked together, he considers, immortalized in the bloom of a hundred irises melting into one. In the centre of the room is an altar.

It must be the wide-eyed hunger with which he takes it all in, or the knot in his throat at feeling so much like he’s truly come home, or even his propensity for rushing into situations that may well end badly for him – but he’s more than happy to sit atop it when Elias gently and deliberately presses his palms down on his shoulders. When Elias brushes the hair from his eyes with a tenderness enough to make him weep, trailing his thumb down and along his jawline, he’s more than happy to kiss him back, on the sweet borderline between chastity and desperation. He’s more than happy to be pressed further down onto the altar, to lie back with Elias crawling on top of him to kiss his mouth and neck and fondly tease at his scars, a hand pinning his wrists to the gold-veined marble. What he doesn’t expect, though, is the sudden feeling of cold metal at one of his wrists, and then the click – of both the cuff and the tape recorder. 

The way Jon’s breath catches in his throat is simply delightful. His Archivist, stripped of boldness, abruptly quiet, pupils still dilated and darting with calculation, ripe for the ruining, has got to be one of Elias’ favourite things. He just stares, admiring his quivering mouth, usually so clever and quick to voice disapproval, and oh so nice to kiss. His gaze falls on the curve of his neck, his dishevelled shirt exposing one of his collarbones, skin taut with little scars, his hair already a mess, and then languidly creeps up to cherish the picture of his free hand clawing at the cuff in a sightless panic. Elias can’t help but wet his lips. 

“What are you going to do to me?” Jon finally asks, composure and compulsion in his voice, like his boss isn’t straddling him. 

“Exactly what you think, and more, my Archivist.”

As if to punctuate Elias’ statement, another tape recorder clicks itself on somewhere behind him, and he reaches for the hand that isn’t chained down, prying it away from working at the metal band despite having, no doubt, found the keyhole. He entwines Jon’s fingers with his own and gives his hand a squeeze halfway between reassurance and mockery before bringing it to his mouth and kissing the back of it, over and over again. Jon watches, and even though he poises himself to pull away and even entertains the thought of giving Elias a matter-of-fact backhand, he can’t – because there’s that reverence again, hot on his skin and cloyingly sweet, and the flush of his curiosity is a fever now, catalysed with the aching need for acceptance. Elias kisses every knuckle, every joint, every fingertip, diligent and adoring, kisses his palm and wrist and sighs, low and content, and Jon lies to himself that he doesn’t want it. 

“You see,” Elias croons into Jon’s hand, both wet and wry, “many know our patron as little more than a passive observer, but it is befitting of a power to accept an occasional sacrifice. Consider this a private ritual.” As befitting of Elias, he offers little more in the way of an explanation save a few more kisses, relishing the frantic pulse of Jon’s imagination. The images twist into perversions of each other as he broadcasts his expectations of worst-case scenarios, and Elias gives a quick laugh. “No need to be so loud, though I suppose no one else can hear. You must understand, Archivist, that you’re only here because you’re ready.” With that, he leans down again, fixing the much-loved wrist with another sturdy cuff, and catching the soft “no” and the beginnings of a protest longing to escape from Jon’s lips between his teeth, biting down on all the fear and succulent apprehension. He kisses Jon: slow and insidious, hurtful and devoted.

The lack of a proper explanation from Elias is as predictable and infuriating as his tongue – laden with much more generosity than his words. Refusing to close his eyes and appreciate the gift, he still takes it, and looks to the stained ceiling for better answers. Its multitudes stare back, light filtering through in garlands and laurels, dark pupils like scattered seeds or inverted stars. Reflections of his own, the eyes offer nothing but their undivided attention. There’s such a depth to them, such a keenness that permeates him to the very core and makes him feel so afraid of losing and finding himself all at once, and so awfully alive. He turns to the walls next, and only sees himself, face uncomfortably flushed as Elias moves down to mouth at his neck. Nothing in this place will be any help, he decides, and that’s all the clarity he needs. Painfully persistent and stubborn, he gives the chains a few tugs, knowing full well they’ll hold him. Freeing himself is out of the question, but he’s not above a show of fussy distress and a “fuck you” that misses the mark on pure vitriol. 

Elias laughs again, unbuttoning Jon’s shirt as he squirms and shifts beneath him. There’s something so wickedly funny about an idol made for worship struggling against the lavish love that gives it meaning, he thinks, before leaning in to give him a long lick along his collarbone. Jon’s breath hitches dreadfully, and Elias, with utmost glee, notes how he can practically feel his racing pulse with the flat of his tongue. So sensitive. 

“Here, something to keep you in your place.” Elias reaches into one of his pockets, and switches on a tape recorder. “Recorded it specially for you, my Archivist.” Sure enough, a statement starts running, and he grins as Jon’s eyes widen at the muffled sound, eager to lap up every drop. Involuntarily, Jon’s hands clench, fingers stiffened into claws and veins bulging wonderfully – a sight in those cuffs. All the eyes in the room smile down on him, and he joins them, hungry and entranced. 

As Jon listens, Elias continues to undress and admire him, slathering him in attentive care and murmurs of praise. Reverence and decadence go hand in hand, and he’s set on spoiling his pet Archivist – paying particular tributes to the scar tissue clustered into discoloured constellations, the jut of his hip bones, the soft space below his missing ribs – all with his tongue and teeth, caressing hands doing their very best to cover the rest of him. The last elicits a pretty little whine, and Elias bites harder, sucking at the skin. He’s rewarded with a breathy moan that Jon hardly notices – too intent on parsing the running statement: a terrified tale of some poor soul pursued by a being with eyes that wandered deep into their nightmares, and fresh too – given just a few weeks ago. Even as he realises he’s being described, the waves of horror that normally wash over him when faced with such a candid account don’t come. Elias’ voice lovingly detailing the particulars of that shivery dread synergizes so perfectly with the stained eyes that know too much of his heart, and the tactile worship lingering at his waist. 

“Oh, my Archivist, just like that,” Elias whispers, revisiting budding bruises with fluttering eyelashes as he comes up to face him. Pleased and pliant, Jon gives a glassy-eyed smile, so precious it hurts. Such a shameless display sends a shiver up Elias’ spine, and he can’t help but indulge himself: he slowly but firmly spreads Jon’s legs, pressing his thighs down on the marble, and grinds on him through his underwear with his palm. He’s nice and hard and whimpers at the touch, high and so damn delectable, fear-drunk eyes rolling back. Then and there, Elias decides that he too deserves something to look at and promptly finishes undressing him – save for his shirt caught on the cuffs. While Jon’s cock is on the smaller side, it’s painfully stiff, and Elias has to fight the urge to just murder it with his mouth, then and there, dropping to his knees in a show of predatory devotion. Biting hard at the inside of one of his cheeks, he wills himself to wait with a sharp inhale. He also deserves something to listen to, he decides – and grabs the very first tape recorder documenting the scene, holding it up straight up to Jon’s mouth as he gives him a few generous strokes. A proper moan escapes his lips now, loud and low and fucking slutty, feeding right into the tape recorder. His eyes water, with pupils so blown up and ravenous as black holes. Elias chews at his lip, both terribly aroused and sardonic: Jon’s a willing effigy. Good. 

Fighting the temptation to appease only himself with little regards to the Eye, Elias kneels down with every intent of opening the small drawer at the base of the altar – after the brief luxury of pressing bruises into his Archivist’s thighs as he leans in to tease him with a long zigzagging lick, then greedily takes him whole in his mouth. The sounds Jon makes as he swirls his tongue around the tip of cock are absolutely divine, and as he tastes precome, he wonders if pulling away would be worth it. He does anyway, if only to hear the pitiful noises that follow. Among undignified whines Jon quietly mouths out a “…please, keep going” as Elias wills himself to move on to the drawer, and struggles to decide whether spoiling or tormenting his idol is more satisfying. He curses himself for picking such a cute Archivist, and grinds on himself hard with the heel of his palm, just a few times to tide himself over for the moment. At last, he stands to look him eye to eye, proudly holding the drawer’s contents. In his hands rests an athame, golden, with the obsidian hilt inlaid in gem rings, each resembling a pupil and iris. He holds it over Jon’s face and unsheathes it, the polished blade an evil echo of the glint in his own eyes. It may as well be a mirror with how the roof’s tarnished light dances on it, double edged and holy in its reflection. “Oh, I will.” 

The first cut feels almost dreamlike, Jon barely registering what’s happening through a mind clouded with arousal and fullness, and the second barely stings. The third, however, drags itself vivid and acute, coiling on his skin. In the gleam of the blade, he can see that Elias has drawn an eye on him, at that very sweet spot under his ribs – and despite it being just three lines, it stares back, slick with blood. Every reverie holding Jon in place shatters like a melancholy mirror and bile rises in his throat like seven years bad luck. He thrashes and cries out, tries to kick Elias but doesn’t have the sense to protest anymore, and feels his humanity slip away to reveal something so much more beautiful as Elias faithfully kisses the wound in its centre. It doesn’t heal – of course it doesn’t, he chose this. 

Elias cuts into him again, a set of five arcing lines on his thigh which he kisses in turn. They sting like the promise of tears, and he turns and twists, grunting through gritted teeth. Elias digs his nails into them, spreading them apart. Licking the blood from his lips, he seems almost experimental in attempts to make Jon squeal, but receives a string of curses instead. Very well, then – there’s plenty of him to deface and make sacrament of, and Elias clings to the patience and decorum he knows he possesses. Jon knows too, and braces himself for that strange, adoring, watchful knife and mouth. Slices lattice his thighs and refuse to close, with Elias dutifully tonguing each one, going deeper into the flesh and its hot tight ceremony. He’s drawn another eye, Jon feels it – it hurts so much more knowing that his body is nearer a holy book than skin that is wholly his own. His thoughts are lurid and choke with intensity as they snake out of the cuts to nestle on Elias’ tongue. Sampling them with such pleasure, he crafts them into a confirmation of what Jon already knows: a hymn of spit and iron. “You exist to be worshipped.” The weight of the words delves on Elias’ fingers as he pushes them in to scissor the taut skin, gorging on the messy way Jon twitches at the violation. 

Whatever’s left of the door nestled at the base of his skull is fit to give as Elias penetrates the slurred, pliant tissue with blade, biting tongue and knowing hand alike. Each sleazy slip of sticky fear smothers his nerves in aching thorn and heady crimson. With each new eye carved into him, Jon can’t help but twin the way Elias devours the Beholding’s communion. He watches, greedy in his crown of pain. The thin precision of the knife and the slippery pressure of wounds fingered soft rise like a veil over his vision as each stretched, squelched eye is licked out expertly. It hurts, yes, but he likes it – likes Elias’ version of worship, likes being played with and told honeyed approval that paints him a Ceaseless Watcher alongside the sick, slick smears of bloody lust. 

It’s with a gasp, then, that he realises how achingly hard he still is as Elias grants him a respite from the pain. Hands caked in thick blood from reducing and deifying Jon down to slits, he inspects his work. Tingling static strokes wherever he eyes his Archivist, lovingly tracing his mutilated masterpiece, reading every line of him as scripture. Weeping eyes stare back at him, plasma for tears, and Elias lazily centres his gaze at Jon’s cock, now quivering with need. He could just leave him there, he thinks, if only to flaunt the idea as torture he has a taste for and relish the way Jon wriggles and thrusts at the thought. Dignity is so beyond him now – and so is the denial he so often wears like an ill-tailored suit that suits him far less than golden chains and a bloody shirt. “Please,” he finally murmurs with a weak wet hiss: the only cue Elias craves. He readily reaches down to roughly pump Jon’s cock and before he can say anything else, bloody fingers are shoved into his mouth, spreading and stretching it out with first three, then four. With the fresh taste of all his pain clinging to his throat, he starts working at them with his tongue, sucking them – eager to reclaim the agony of his acceptance as he bucks up at Elias’ other hand. He doesn’t care that he’s crying now, bitter and selfish in that horrible, monstrous, lovely want that’s all his own, whether he be a man or an effigy. “My, your appetite… is something to revel in,” Elias breathes out with a familiar reverence, welcoming in its depravity. 

It’s true and right and Jon can do nothing but submit to revelation, exposed for what he is. Tears freely leak from his dreadful eyes, fogging up his glasses and pooling like dew in the hollows of his scars as Elias jacks him mercilessly. The punishing pace feels like more than he deserves – Elias has never been quite so generous – but it also isn’t enough now that Jon knows what kind of love is reserved for the Archivist in all His willing idolatry. Being anything but Elias’ prized possession would be sheer torment, he thinks; it would no longer fit any image of himself – not when it feels so damn good. 

“You don’t have to be anything else,” Elias says, smug as ever, and Jon’s grateful he has the hand to clean of blood gagging him, or else he’d agree. 

Statement long since spent, he makes muffled sounds for the running tape recorders, of which he’s lost count: it sounds like three, or maybe five – eager to be orchestrated eyes in his orchestrated demise. The pleasure courses through his body, electric at his tortured nerve endings. Elias only picks up the pace, sweetening the suffering with a blood-slick hand that knows exactly what Jon needs. It’s roughness that he craves, and unwavering rhythm that makes his back arch, chest heave like stiff and staggered lightning. Writhing, wanting, and jerking like a doll, Jon bites the hand that feeds, screaming through clenched teeth as he finishes. The sound is raw and exquisite, caught on tapes and in mirrors, bliss amaranthine as he comes all over Elias’ hand and watches every spurt, bears witness to the sharp blossoms and tender shards of his ecstasy. With how hard he bites, he doesn’t know whether the blood in his mouth is his own and doesn’t care to check – finally letting himself close his eyes, satiate and consumed. 

The door that lies beyond is just a formality, buckling under the treacherous, blessed light that has long since awaited him. He watches, helpless, as it creaks under the strain, each splinter melting into ornate glass as it separates. Through the fault lines, all he can see is the room he’s already in, cast in a veil of blood and aurora. With any semblance of defence shattering, fraying away, Jon’s eyelids become the windows of his own cathedral. Lacerated, loved, vulnerable, ravenous, he steps through.

The unmistakable gleam of a smile stares back at him even as Elias’ mouth is concealed behind his hand, saliva stringing bloodied fingers together. He’s licking them clean, Jon realises, possessive of every bit of him – the flavour of his mouth infusing the thick, pinkish spit; the bitemarks he chooses deliberately to keep as trophies. Next, Elias brings his other hand to his lips, eyelids fluttering as his tongue works Jon’s cum off his palm, selfish and wholly delectable. The avarice and delicacy with which he samples it inspires jealousy, and Elias smirks as he offers two fingers just above Jon’s parted lips. He has to shift, angling his head up in a way that hurts his shoulders, but he dutifully sucks them off, eager to taste himself. 

Spent as he is, his Archivist is too much of a fucking tease for him to bear, and Elias withdraws the generous treat, then climbs back on top of him, thumbing at wounds and tangling slick, dirty hands in his hair. He runs his fingers through it, adoring and degenerate, claiming the soft curls by spoiling them in sanguine, semen, and saliva. Without warning, he balls it up in his fists and firmly tugs at it – eliciting a yelp – as he grinds on Jon’s hardening cock with a cruel rigour. He’s soiling the fabric of his trousers, but he doesn’t care one bit as he kisses his wanting mouth, sharing in the salty warmth with hints of bitterness and iron. Rough and desperate, Elias ruts and claws at cuts, Jon letting out a continuous whine of pain and delight. Shameless and guilty alike, he squirms under Elias, overwhelmed and unblinking, involuntarily beginning to rock his hips. Yes, Beholding accepts sacrifices, and Elias rewards Jon for the ease with which he surrenders them. 

A cut he catches particularly vicious with a nail opens and unfolds itself to reveal an eye: fresh, filmy and unfocused. Blood and sweat sting and cloud it, and it frantically shifts in the mantle of the wound. Another opens in response, flesh stretching to accommodate it, then another – blinking back tears that flow like a poem, heavy in their liberation. All the sources of Jon’s vision coalesce into a dizzy singularity, and he tries to screw them shut as Elias bites down on his lip, rolling his hips with a quickening intensity. It doesn’t matter – his skin is crawling, bulging with eyes that long to break its surface in their primordial desire to seek the light. Feeling them shift under his palms, Elias moves to kiss at them, licking flush across their sclerae, clumping wet eyelashes together with gentle suction that hardly matches his needy, dry thrusts. His hands frisk and caress Jon’s body for eyes still unopened and split them, nails an echo of the athame. All the while, he longs to claim some part of his Archivist for himself alone – something no God can exalt into a greater whole. Blushing and panting from all the stimulation, Jon’s every gaze pulls him closer and wraps around his wrists like cuffs of his own: challenging him to do just that. 

It must be the wide-eyed hunger with which Jon looks at him, and the knot in his throat that opens into an eye as he thumbs it over, and especially the way he’s been edging himself for so damn long – but Elias knows exactly how to test Jon right back. He grabs the ritual dagger, trying the tip with his index finger, then sinks it directly into the squirming centre of the very first ceremonial eye carving. It’s still blind but barely, and Elias robs it of vision forever, Jon giving a piercing scream as the sight is deprived and the pain is too much, too sharp and sudden. Pangs of agonising regret concentrate underneath the stolen rib on his left side, a pain unlike any he has known – maliciously gilded in curious novelty. He studies it in all its blistering anguish and affirmation, throat ragged with crying as he feels a cold pupil emerge amidst his tearing vocal cords. Elias makes sure to do it slow, giving himself plenty of time to relish the screaming, bisecting the half-formed eye and crushing it by shifting the blade, now hilt deep. As he twists the knife, every eye opens: weeping fierce, fearful tears. They all fixate on the wound, knife left embedded, then on Elias as he takes the time to unzip his trousers, stained disgracefully with Jon’s cum. 

Kneeling above Jon, Elias pulls the trousers down to his mid-thighs. His briefs show off the bulging outlines of his erection, and he toys with the waistband before rolling his hips into the motion of inching them off. He’s bigger than Jon, and thicker too – and entertains the thoughts of filling his greedy mouth or tight little ass, knowing he’d take it without much trouble at all, as opposed to the wound. He strokes himself off at the fresher tears spilling from a few of the eyes as Jon, no doubt, considers the same. Grinning, he moves to sit higher up and quickly withdraws the athame. Jon yelps at the sudden emptiness, with blood starting to rush in and leak out around the entrance, and Elias, licking his lips without a moment to waste, positions his cock at the crude, gushing hole; pushes into the pressure of the unwilling meat. 

Jon can’t tell which hurts more – every laborious part of forging himself into Elias’ idol, or the quick motion of a knife and utmost desecration that renders him a fleshlight – and he screams to drown out the pain of both and that the thought that they aren’t so different: both have his skin ripping and dripping with sweat. Elias hears, of course, moaning with pleasure and confirmation as he speeds up, carelessly tearing the flesh, fucking the wound open, each thrust inviting an oozing surge of hot new blood at the base of his cock as he tries to go deeper and deeper yet. It feels fucking amazing, and Elias persists, Jon’s begging him to stop only an encouragement to do his worst. The way his mouth quivers with fear; the way his crooked glasses are splashed with tears enough to make stained windows of themselves – Elias wants nothing more to claim it all for himself, and takes the full liberty of stealing his Archivist from the Eye, for every gluttonous thrust and scream of terrible resignation. Cohesive thoughts almost impossible through the haze of his visceral want, the only words he manages to force out amidst all the moans and grunts are a reminder that dilates every pupil with its compulsion: “remember, you chose this.”

Jon screams denial, voice tattered and worn through the miasma of pain, but he’s unclean with truth, knowledge warped into the irises that so patiently capture his defilement. He watches himself contort in the torment of sacrilege; through eyes he cannot close – and pitifully wishes he wanted to. The heat of his suffering pierces him straight through, pinning him to the stone like an insect in a museum collection. All the while, Elias savours how easy it is to take every facet of his Archivist for himself, how easily the tight flesh gives way for his hedonism, as is its right. He fucks the hollow of that unmade eye with ownership and pride, an act of worship and blasphemy. Skin made to be torn, flesh and organs made to be ruptured – he penetrates it with an unyielding sovereignty, eyes wriggling under wanting hands latched to Jon’s shoulders. There is nothing but elation as Elias makes use of what’s his, marking him forever a victim of violence, indulgence, and veneration – rapture and agony amalgamating with each debauched assault of the sightless gash. 

Used, abused, and loved so deeply, Jon vilifies himself for complying, for taking it this far. With all the fight left in him being thoroughly fucked out, trickling indistinguishable from tears or blood, he longs to free his hands, though he no longer can accept the reason why. Wretched and broken, he half-heartedly tugs at his chains – trying to fool himself into yearning for anything but this. If anything, the way he fakes it only gets Elias off more. No restraint to speak of, tempo breaking off into an intolerable frenzy, he whines with how close he is. Limbs occasionally locking up in jolts of even greater pleasure, he still digs wanting fingers into Jon’s waist, lifting him by it and forcibly driving it onto his cock. Jon lets out a scream, of course – to mask the arch of his back as he obliges. 

The wound, by now, is a sloppy mess spitting with viscera, gaping debased red. Distended considerably from all the abuse, made loose and slutty just for him – Elias wants nothing more than to completely surrender himself to the sense of touch, an acolyte to immersion. He gives himself to its raw responsiveness, the texture of tattered muscles and burst organs stroking him off – and takes his Archivist whole in the ardour of his private ritual. The need to know and mark him inside and out overpowers any decorum of healing granted to Jon by their observing patron, looking past Elias’ greed in favour of a good show. Favoured by every entertained eye, he chews through his bottom lip as he ruins and thrashes Jon’s shaking body, exploiting its singular purpose. All it takes to throw himself over the edge is the glimpse of Jon’s eyes all simultaneously rolling back, caught in a perversion of pleasure, the sight of himself so reverent and exhausted staring back from every mirror. Jon’s beautiful scream tapers off as Elias roughly shoves his full length in, coming hard inside him. Divine in his ecstasy, he screams long and loud, shutting his eyes at last. A worshipful violation like no other, Jon is filled with Elias’ hot load, stinging inside as it seeps into his rawness, coating every strip of tortured flesh. As he pulls out, it’s with a dragging slowness: lazy, satisfied pumps spilling into and out of him. Slick and sticky, his abdomen is a yawning mess of cum, viscera, and skin that doesn’t know whether to pucker shut. 

Collapsing on the altar next to him, Elias fingers it together – a secret kept save for a scar neither wants to lose. He looks a mess – hair soaked in sweat, a bust lip he refuses to heal, but nothing compared to his idol, whose thin frame racks with heaving sobs. He weeps as Elias holds him, cries from every lovely, terrible eye, soaked and soiled in pain and loss. He weeps for every violation, every part of him lost to pleasure, sin, and sacrament; weeps with grief for every repression and cries of the knowledge that he will no longer be able to deny himself of anything he is; weeps with love for himself. He knows Elias knows, and sheds tears for him too, wreathing eyes together like crowns of vulnerable flowers; weeps as he knows that someday soon, he will wear one. He will wear it proud; he knows – stripped of the chance to lie as every wound apart from Elias’ opens once again, hurting more than ever. He knows he will be perfect, and he weeps with adulation at every ideal Elias bares in him. 

Soon, he’s just shaking with a dry disquiet, relaxing as Elias pets and kisses him – soft on eyelids that manage to close before springing back open, hungry though Jon lacks the appetite. He wishes again that he could have his hands free – though perhaps, the chains barring him from reciprocating the embrace are a blessing – knowing that he would cry again, clutching at Elias’ back. No – he only has to lie back and accept the praise and reverence, passive and gorgeous, lulled into watchful rest as Elias’ shadow conceals him from most of the roof’s stained light. Deified and depleted, he lies still – barely responding to his own name as Elias tongues and rubs praise into him. “Oh, Jon,” he says for the third time, mouth flush at his neck, “you’ve done so very well,” and Jon quietly sighs, ready to pass out as Elias kisses up his jawline to his ear. “Of course,” he whispers, “I’d expect nothing less from my Archivist.” 

When Elias calls him Archivist, Jon is all eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> fucking murder me with a pipe, why don't you


End file.
